Honestly every Tomb Raider showing just looked like an engine showcase, there was barely any gameplay or anything of substance shown. Yeah the game looks visually impressive, but I have yet to see any promise in any other area of the game outside of graphics

8-10 hours has been the norm this gen. People's favorite treasure hunter this gen has been in games with the same length of time, lol, and I didn't hear a peep out of people. Don't get me started on re-gen health, seeing as though everyone complained about Far Cry 2 and the syringes and malaria medicine. I can't wait to see how the hunting portion turns out though.

Naked Snake was hunting / hoarding animal and plant life for food and meds.

And he wasn't just eating to keep his health up.

If you let him go hungry, Snake's aim got shoddy and enemy soldiers might find him easier by hearing his stomach growl. Eat the wrong thing and you got a messed up stomach. Or really screw yourself if you can't or neglect to find the right plant for ointments and splinting broken bones.

And people pan Kojima. Please...

That's some survival right there. But as everyone knows, unless the name has a Souls at the end, games have been about hand-holding and a more "fun" experience for the mainstream audience this console gen.

Thank goodness for a few devs going in the other direction (Day Z!) to produce a challenging game, without using a higher difficulty setting in the options to simply bump up opponent health and use cheap AI tactics.

But I still want to check this TR out, even though the no swimming thing is irksome. I mean Lara out-swims sharks, so I figured she was a natural swimmer since she was a toddler.

It isn't that she can't swim, dishonest headline, it's that there is no water level or need for Lara to swim. It isn't like there's going to be water in places, and just like in GTA Vice City you'll die whenever you're up to your waste in water lol

People typically hate water levels anyway, so I don't blame them for not putting one in.

They've copied Uncharted... And failed. Health regen is downright laughable in a SURVIVAL GAME! No swimming? How old is Lara? And this is set in modern times? Get lost, lazy devs exposed! I'm sure more disappointments will come - be ready people.

You guys getting a hardon for bashing a game that you've never fucking even played yet? Where the hell is this hate-train coming from? Unreasonable.... whether I get downvoted for speaking the truth or not, no ones from the future, yet everyones getting 'Agrees' for posting flamebait on shit they don't know and whining about regen health? Right....

Not being able to swim is silly, that much I can say....

All the rest of these comments are fucking pathetic though. Little whiny babies.

Funny you should say that, I got this little feeling to check your past comments and guess what you fall into the same category as most people here who bash things irrationally, that is to say the WiiU. So deal with the bitching, this is n4g. Where we bash anything that might be considered news worthy on this website.

Which judging by the recent amount of approved material would mean very low standards.

If I'm to trash talk, it's with logic and evidence....There's no evidence or rational thought, reasoning, put into this beyond what I already said of the silliness of no swimming.

and to @rjdofu, someone who uses the childish and old-time taunt of asking if someone is mad or not. I'm clearly not the one mad when everyone above me are tossing salads about a game that's not even out yet, Bro. I'm mad at ignorance, if you think I'm not allowed to be annoying by common human ignorance, then I'd simply laugh at you.

So the definition of Survival is especially defined Health-choice? Resident Evil styled maybe? Do you simply not have faith that they've found a way to integrate regen to a degree that is reasonable? Maybe it's VERY slow regeneration? Is the point not to analyze these things but to jump on their dick and ride it hard while bitching and moaning about the developers doing everything wrong before you've even played the game yourself?

No, just no. Wait for the final release, play it, then say what you feel. It'd be your own opinion and a valid one, but how people are handling it now? It's obnoxious. Same as ME3 fanboys and Sega fanboys lashing out.

No. Probably more like 20 to 30 hrs. if gamers would stop cheating and by that i mean aka walkthrough guides, wiki, youtube vids etc...play the game and actually search it through and enjoy, but nope they have to always take short cuts so they can say " I beat it in 8 hrs.". bah hardly.

My gaming experience is being ruined as I check every corner for something, and I always do, so that I don't miss anything, making games like Skyrim become more like work, not fun, managing all the weight and items that I have stored all over the house, placed them in different group order, to make it easier.

That is why I prefer sand-box style games, I can go there, do that, and then later come back, if I have a need to.

I'd have to agree with you, this game, from what I have seen looks gorgeous and will take a quite a lot of nice spent time looking at the views.

I should really learn to play games slowly and enjoy searching all the corners, but I am usually rushing, and trying to do everything perfectly, old habits die hard...

neither of those games were about SURVIVING on a harsh island surrounded by WATER where you play as a young woman whose sole goal is to SURVIVE a harsh environment where she has to learn to adapt and use what she has around her to SURVIVE and a vital part of that is going into WATER.

But since there's health regen, it doesn't matter anyway. This is NOT a survival game by any stretch of the imagination. DayZ is survival, this is just a cheap ploy to cash in on casuals with brand recognition.

No health packs - Something you would obviously use to SURVIVE which is one of the main elements about this game. It would of been great if she had to wrap her self up with bandages if she got hurt. Another old school Tomb Raider feature they removed

I can't believe they got rid of the two things which made Tomb Raider...Tomb Raider, let me guess they wanted to make the game more accessible, damn why are developers this gen always have to dumb down good franchises.

Skyrim was good don't get me wrong but it just felt so straight forward and accessible. Most things which made the game challenging were thrown out, and yet that crappy soul charge thing for Staffs/Echanted weapons which put people off being a mage remained.

EDIT:

Have to say I love that I'm basicaly saying the same as everyone else yet I'm the only one to get disagrees...stay classy NG4

Is that like the new counter argument people have come up with recently to defend a game when it's been dumbed down..."Oh yeah just put it on a high difficulty", yeah thats not going to bring the features back is it

Seriously people have been saying the same about the new dmc, first they said to wait for the demo, now that people are still speaking out about it, it's like "Oh well change the difficulty"

I mean they've basicaly made it more Uncharted like, in Uncharted I can understand there being regenerating health but not in Tomb Raider

<sigh>

EDIT @Below

"So you'd rather retain archaic features that endeared you to a game while keeping casuals and *near-gamers* away"

...urm...yeah

Keep them away, as far as way as they can. If your a gamer you don't need things to be changed to suit your needs your either a gamer or your not. You don't need marketing and casual gimmicks shoved down your throat to like something. The difference is us "actual" gamers like gaming for what it is, the casual audience only like what they are told to like or whats changed to suit there needs.

It's either them or us and since we were here first and gaming is something we all enjoy for what it is and has always been then yeah I wish they would f*** off.

My type is what is keeping core gaming alive still, your type are the ones who would bend over and take it if a developer screws you over, like what Capcom have done to Resident Evil and dmc, what Square Enix have done to Final Fantasy or the horrible problems Bethesda have run into with the PS3 despite claiming that both versions were the same

@Jinkies The problem with an Old Crowd is that it perpetually gets smaller. Accessibility is not an evil. It is something that is taking gaming out of the Dark Ages and at worst making it a more acceptable pastime.

So you'd rather retain archaic features that endeared you to a game while keeping casuals and *near-gamers* away. Oh yeah, you're hardcore. Big Man, you. Your type does wonders for the gaming world.

No one never complaint about Soul Reaver games have regenerative health and no game overs they were simply great games nonetheless but since were talking about Tomb Raider and not Soul Reaver i think it should have a "purist mode" (like Hitman Absolution) were featurres medkits.

That's pretty much what I said. TR had it's own identity. When people said UC was a TR ripoff I agreed, but saw enough differences to not really care. When I saw TR try to be more like UC I cared because TR was a strong franchise on it's own. The changes were unnecessary. If they had taken the original TR mechanics and made them better then it would have been much better to me.

Still, this whole practice seems to be business as usual for gaming today, which is really sad.

Hold the phone. So you guys are trying to make this game about realistic survival and she can't swim and regenerates health? Is that some sort of joke or something? So while Last of Us has you realistically healing yourself with medicine and bandages from your backpack with no regenerating health you guys took the lazy way and did the magic regen health? *picks up chart, ticks of square* that is one more strike for new Tomb Raider. That is three so far.

Yeah, The Last of Us wowed me when they released that trailer in which Joel wrapped his arm with bandage to heal himself. I wonder why health regen is in this game when CD gave the impression that this TR reboot is all about survival and all that.

I thought this was the Dark Knight of video games which will give us something dark and serious. Health regen and no swimming sections (A TR staple) don't really make up for a TDKR experience, if you ask me.

You can't compare a square enix game with a naughty dog game, Tlou will be one of the few non-rpg games without health regen most games adapted that ugly insta health regen from COD, thanks to those casual gamers mechanics I barely see good FPS or TPS games these days.

The only thing that can save this game is adding swimming and making the health take a lot of time to regen or just add medkits, if not it will be more of the generic trash that gets spit out every year.

Even though I think it's gamers fault, since most generic games are the ones that sell the most, that makes most devs scared of changing the formula

My friends all chipped in and bought me a PS1 with Tomb Raider and Tekken 2 for my 30th birthday in 1997, sigh, memories, that's back when gaming was mainly a pastime for adult nerds and parents were still horrified by children who sat in front of the TV for hours on end. I used to sit in a beanbag with my new baby daughter asleep on my chest and play those games over and over.

I'm really appalled by the sheer ignorance in these comments. If anyone bothered to read the article, it clearly says Lara knows how to swim, there just won't be any swimming segments in this game. It's not a big deal and there's no need to get your knickers in a twist over it, claiming to not get the game because of it. Hey, your loss.

However, I can understand being up in arms about regenerative health. That has never appeared in a Tomb Raider game and for good reason. Regenerative health should not be an ingredient in a game like Tomb Raider. Even GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 didn't have regenerative health. In modern shooters, it's understandable, but it does not fit here and in my opinion, is not welcome. But I'm not going to lose sleep and get all hot and bothered about it.

I'm pretty sure many of us here understand your angle on the 'swimming' topic. And I'm pretty sure most of us are a bit put off, not by Lara not being able to swim (because she can, as stated in the article), but because there is no water segment in the game where Lara could use her swimming skills.

Knowing that Lara is in an island where there's water everywhere makes it a dumb perspective for CD not to include water levels. Imagine secret coves and locations accessible only through swimming that they could add in this game for variety!

Are you kidding? That makes it even more idiotic.She swims in the cutscenes but she doesn't on the island? I mean surely if you are going to put her on an island surrounded by water with rivers, streams and waterfalls they couldn't have at least given her the option to swim in them even if it wasn't a swimming sequence? I mean even Drake in UC2 and UC3 could swim in the water.It's not a big deal to you but the Tomb Raider veterans who are already put off by the game will be even more so by the lack of this and even worse by the regen health. How is it survival if your health regenerates just like that?

well it does make the game easier, you can hide when almost dead and pop right back out of a corner as good as new.

The problem is The TR series is known for its survival gameplay/atmosphere. Also all previous TR games (as i remember) had health packs for healing. Health packs remove the simplicity of simply waiting to be at maxed health, rather they increase the need to play skillfully so you don't run out of HP.

The reason to play skillfully makes a game not only harder, but more sensible under the genre of survival.

No one ever complaint about Soul Reaver games having regenerative health and no game overs they were simply great games nonetheless but since were talking about Tomb Raider and not Soul Reaver i think it should have a "purist mode" (like Hitman Absolution) were featurres medkits.

Taking out the swimming might be a good thing for a change even though i liked the swimming in TR: Underworld.

Im still excited for this game but c,mon son regenerative health thats kind of a cop out I was expecting a realtime system like the last of us where your still using health packs, for the love of god please dont turn out like that crap DmC game.

What?.. cant swim? Not even doggy paddle?... cmon. But I guess that's a way to cop-out with some weak game design. Regenerating health? Isn't this a little bit of a passe 90's style of play? Christ...Why not throw a Master Chief helmet on her while they're at it? Explosive red and yellow barrels too I'd bet. I was looking forward to this until now.